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Arjen Van Witteloostuijn - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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unpacking logm toward a more general theory of party system density
American Journal of Political Science, 2010Co-Authors: David Lowery, Arjen Van Witteloostuijn, Gábor Péli, Simon Otjes, Sergiu Gherghina, Holly BrasherAbstract:The standard model of political party system density combines two traditions to explain why some countries have more political parties than others, one tradition that emphasizes social cleavages and another that emphasizes electoral institutions, especially district magnitude. Despite its considerable success, there are several reasons to be less than fully satisfied with the standard model. We examine two of these problems associated with the scope of strategic voting and the functional form of the specification used to test the model. In doing so, we contrast the standard interpretation with an Organizational Ecology model that accounts for what the standard model did so well, but also accounts for important anomalies it ignores. We reexamine some of the key analyses that have been used to test the standard model to assess the severity of its limitations and the utility of the rival Organizational Ecology account.
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Evolutionary game theory and Organizational Ecology: The case of resource-partitioning theory
2009Co-Authors: Chaohong Zhou, Arjen Van WitteloostuijnAbstract:In this paper, we construct a mathematical model that applies tools from evolutionary game theory to issues in Organizational Ecology. Evolutionary game theory shares the key feature of mathematical rigor with the industrial organization tradition, but is similar to Organizational Ecology by emphasizing evolutionary dynamics. Evolutionary game theory may well be a complementary modeling tool for the analytical study of Organizational Ecology issues, next to formal logic, standard game theory, and agent-based simulation. We illustrate this claim in the context of resource-partitioning theory. We assess the impact of an organization population’s resource space shape and scale economies on Organizational performance and market evolution. The model demonstrates that the shift of resource distribution from homogeneous (heterogeneous) to heterogeneous (homogeneous) benefits specialism (generalism). On top of that, we offer a new result by revealing the distinct effects of external and internal scale economies on market evolution.
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Toward a Game Theory of Organizational Ecology: Production Adjustment Costs and Managerial Growth Preferences
Strategic Organization, 2003Co-Authors: Arjen Van Witteloostuijn, Christophe Boone, Arie Van LierAbstract:This paper merges two theoretical perspectives in a mathematical game-theoretic modeling approach: industrial organization on the one hand, which basically is the eco nomic theory of market competition and firm strategies, and Organizational Ecology on the other hand, which is a major sociological tradition that studies the evolution of organiza tional populations. The merger is instrumental in analyzing a key question in strategic orga nization: what is the role of flexibility, inertia and efficiency in facilitating firm performance in a selection environment, in terms of both profitability and survival? We argue particularly that game theory can offer a mathematical model of Organizational Ecology. In this paper we explore two modeling examples. The first model introduces production adjustment costs and the second managerial growth preferences in a Cournot duopoly game. Both models support Organizational Ecology' claim that an inert firm may push a flexible rival from the market. Moreover, four additional results are worth mentioning. First, a firm' profit-enhancing flexibility or inertia profile is contingent upon the market' carrying capa city development. Second, the inert firm may even outperform its flexible rival when the inert market leader faces a cost disadvantage. Third, this may happen in a munificent envi ronment, implying that cut-throat rivalry can be the result of strategic competition only, as it is facilitated by Organizational inertia. Fourth, in response to the rival' flexibility or inertia profile, a firm can calculate its profit-maximizing production adjustment cost or managerial growth objective strategy.
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Industrial Organization and Organizational Ecology: The Potentials for Cross-fertilization
Organization Studies, 1995Co-Authors: Christophe Boone, Arjen Van WitteloostuijnAbstract:The population of organization studies that has become known under such names as population Ecology and Organizational Ecology (OE), is entering the stage of maturity. It is argued here that this branch of organization studies can increase the carrying capacity of its niche by seeking cross-fertilization with the century-old field of industrial organization and the economically inspired sub-field of strategic management. Doing so would enrich the study of the long-run evolution of Organizational populations by adding a focus on differ ences between and within industries to OE's emphasis on universal similarities. The argument is illustrated by investigating the long-run development of the German and U.S. brewing industries on the one hand and the Dutch audit industry on the other.
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Top management team composition and Organizational Ecology: A nested hierarchical selection theory of team reproduction and Organizational diversity
Advances in Strategic Management, 1Co-Authors: Christophe Boone, Filippo Carlo Wezel, Arjen Van WitteloostuijnAbstract:The “upper echelon” literature has mainly produced static empirical studies on the impact of top management team composition on Organizational outcomes, ignoring the dynamics of industrial demography. Organizational Ecology explicitly studied the dynamics of Organizational diversity at the population level, however largely ignoring how the entry and exit of executives shapes Organizational diversity over time. In this paper, we try to integrate both streams of demography research and develop a multi-level behavioral theory of Organizational diversity, linking selection processes at both levels of analysis. The behavioral mechanism connecting the two levels of analysis is the stylized empirical fact that small groups, including top management teams, routinely reproduce their demographic characteristics over time. We argue that, under certain conditions, the potent forces of team homogenization coevolve with those of population-level selection to sustain between-firm diversity.
Richard Bownas - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the upside down roots of a transnational advocacy network applying an Organizational Ecology approach to the anti gmo network
Global Networks-a Journal of Transnational Affairs, 2017Co-Authors: Richard BownasAbstract:In this article, I examine a transnational advocacy network opposed to the introduction of genetically modified crops and supportive of organic agriculture in India. I argue that this network illustrates some of the consequences of ‘upward oriented linkages', in which professional NGO brokers focus on constructing relationships with other professional or elite partner bodies such as donor organizations, global retailers and the English language media. The ‘upside-down’ tree that results has roots pointing upwards to global partners and to domestic elite actors but is less responsive, and less tightly bound, to mass organizations and to its purported non-elite constituency of marginal farmers. I make this case through a methodological approach I term ‘Organizational Ecology’ in which I explore the idea of NGO based advocacy organizations as filling ‘niches’ in the larger political Ecology of rural India and within this ‘Ecology’ forming symbiotic connections to other organizations.
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The upside‐down roots of a transnational advocacy network: applying an ‘Organizational Ecology’ approach to the anti‐GMO network
Global Networks, 2016Co-Authors: Richard BownasAbstract:In this article, I examine a transnational advocacy network opposed to the introduction of genetically modified crops and supportive of organic agriculture in India. I argue that this network illustrates some of the consequences of ‘upward oriented linkages', in which professional NGO brokers focus on constructing relationships with other professional or elite partner bodies such as donor organizations, global retailers and the English language media. The ‘upside-down’ tree that results has roots pointing upwards to global partners and to domestic elite actors but is less responsive, and less tightly bound, to mass organizations and to its purported non-elite constituency of marginal farmers. I make this case through a methodological approach I term ‘Organizational Ecology’ in which I explore the idea of NGO based advocacy organizations as filling ‘niches’ in the larger political Ecology of rural India and within this ‘Ecology’ forming symbiotic connections to other organizations.
Michael T. Hannan - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Ecologies of Organizations: Diversity and Identity
Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2005Co-Authors: Michael T. HannanAbstract:A famous article in bioEcology (Hutchinson, 1959) asked, “Why are There So Many Kinds of Animals?” In a 1977 article, John Freeman and I argued that the central goal of Organizational sociology should be to answer the parallel question: Why are there so many kinds of organizations? We claimed that the social science literature of the time lacked good answers to this question, and we proposed a research agenda for an “Organizational Ecology” to answer it by studying interactions within and between populations of organizations. This essay introduces the basic methodology of Organizational Ecology and sketches some key insights arising from that work. For example, the paper will consider the extent of diversity of Organizational forms; whether organizations can easily shift their defining characteristics; what happens to organizations as they age; the extent to which organizations can find niches that protect them against competitive pressures; and questions of how best to define the identity of organizations. I should note that many of my colleagues in sociology regard Organizational Ecology as heterodox. For one thing, this approach built initially on population bioEcology’s evolutionary models of numerical aspects of population interactions (MacArthur, 1972). Reliance on ideas from biology troubles many sociologists even if, as in this case, no reference is made to any biological mechanism. Likewise, Organizational Ecology has a preoccupation with numerical patterns and tries to link theory, research design and estimation—emphases that run counter to the interpretive zeitgeist of contemporary sociology. However, my sociology colleagues should also note that Organizational Ecology certainly relies on defining key
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comment on logical formalization of theories from Organizational Ecology
Sociological Methodology, 1997Co-Authors: Michael T. HannanAbstract:Theory formalization, once positioned at center stage in sociology, currently plays little role in general sociological work. For about a decade beginning in the mid- 1960s, the promise was held out that formalizationespecially mathematization-would improve the quality of sociological theorizing and promote the development of cumulative theoretical knowledge about general social processes (see, for instance, Coleman 1964; Blalock 1969). Today, formalization lies on the discipline's periphery, as a specialized activity remote from the development and evaluation of sociological theories.' This marginalization and devaluation of formalization partly reflects sociology's retreat from general ("ahistorical") formulations. But it also surely reflects an assessment that the payoff to the style of formalization prominent during the heyday of this movement had not met expectations. This is not the place to attempt a full assessment of what went wrong in sociology's flirtation with formalization.2 But one thing seems clear: there was a mismatch between theories and formalization tools. The available natural-language theories were-and are-partial and imprecise; use of the formal languages, especially mathematics, demanded closure and extreme (usually metric) precision. Efforts at formalizing sociological theories with classical tools required the analyst to assume too much-e.g., to supply the missing assumptions about metrics, continuity, and differentiability of functions. As a result, the formalizations offered during this period yielded models that failed to resonate closely with the original theories.
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Dynamics of Populations of Credit Unions
1994Co-Authors: David Barron, Elizabeth West, Michael T. HannanAbstract:Hannan, West, and Barron investigate the development of credit unions over time, focusing on Organizational processes that shaped and continue to determine the evolution of credit unions. They clarify how the potential for future development of the credit union movement is shaped by the past dynamics of American credit union development, the growth of competing forms of deposit institutions, and government regulation. They use the theoretical and methodological perspective of Organizational Ecology. This approach to Organizational analysis seeks to understand how social conditions affect the rates at which new organizations and new Organizational forms arise, the rates at which organizations change their fundamental features, and the rates at which organizations and Organizational forms die out. Hannan, West, and Barron posed hypotheses that apply to many kinds of Organizational populations and collected credit union data appropriate for testing these hypotheses. Their research reveals a number of informative patterns in the proliferation and growth of credit unions. These patterns suggest strong parallels with the dynamics of other kinds of Organizational populations. Consequently, they conclude that their research indicates that Organizational Ecology theory can help us better understand the evolution of credit unions.
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Setting the record straight on Organizational Ecology.
1993Co-Authors: John D. Freeman, Michael T. HannanAbstract:In July 1988 the American Journal of Sociology published a commentary on the authors study "Is Population Ecology a Useful Paradigm for the Study of Organizations?" The commentary confused numerous issues made no effort to address the motivations and goals and ignored the authors recent empirical work. In response five lines of research that have advanced the understanding of the Ecology of organizations are discussed. The first line examines competition among interacting populations of organizations using variations on Lotka-Volterra (LV) models. Nielsen and Hannan (1977) and Carroll (1981) analyzed the expansion and connection of populations of educational organizations. Britain and Wholey (1988) analyzed interactions among subpopulations of semiconductor manufacturers. A second thrust considered the ecological implications of aging of organizations. Only Organizational ecologists addressed the liability of newness using appropriate data and methods. Carroll and Delacroix (1982) found a liability of newness for newspapers in Argentina and Ireland during the 19th and 20th centuries and Carroll (1983) found a similar pattern in analyzing data on 56 populations as diverse as retail stores chemical manufacturers and saloons. Third ecological research considers the effects of environmental turbulence on rates of founding and mortality. Carroll and Delacroix (1982) and Delacroix and Carroll (1983) discovered that the founding rates and mortality rates of newspapers rise during periods of political turmoil and revolutions. Fourth the authors explored why one form of organization has not expanded to take on all or most of the activities of modern societies. The mainline view of Organizational sociology that environmental variation always favors generalism was challenged. A fifth direction of research studies the effects of competition within and between populations on rates of founding and mortality. The authors study of national labor unions found the predicted nonmonotonic effect of density on rates of founding (Hannan and Freeman 1987) and mortality (Hannan and Freeman 1988).
Changhui Zhou - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Product Innovation in Emerging Market-Based International Joint Ventures: An Organizational Ecology Perspective
Journal of International Business Studies, 2008Co-Authors: Changhui ZhouAbstract:This study investigates product innovation in market-seeking international joint ventures (IJVs) in a large emerging market, and tests two sets of hypotheses: Organizational orientation and environmental adaptation. Drawing on Organizational Ecology theory, we suggest that IJVs’ product innovation can be understood as a consequence of Organizational orientation defined by IJV contract specifications and as a subsequent response to major contingencies of the local environment. Empirically, we analyzed a longitudinal dataset consisting of 3555 IJVs in China from 1999 to 2003, and found strong support for both sets of hypotheses. Product innovation in IJVs is positively associated with initial conditions such as balanced ownership structure, state partnership, and project size; IJVs are more innovative when they operate in an industry with a faster pace of innovation or a higher level of foreign direct investment legitimization, and where they are located in a region with greater agglomerated innovative activities. Journal of International Business Studies (2008) 39, 1114–1132. doi:10.1057/jibs.2008.51
Hao Jiao - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Technological innovation in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS): An Organizational Ecology perspective
Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2016Co-Authors: Yu Cui, Jie Jiao, Hao JiaoAbstract:This study investigates how a firm's engagement in technological innovation in Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) is shaped by its Organizational attributes. Drawing on the logic of Organizational Ecology theory, we suggest that a firm's engagement in technological innovation is influenced by its (1) Organizational resource and capability (e.g., product certificate and employee training), (2) transactional-based competition (e.g., sales to government and export ratio), and (3) ownership structure (e.g., public listing, foreign ownership, and government ownership). Using the World Bank's data, we analyzed firms in BRICS economies and found partial support for the hypotheses. The results suggest that in BRICS economies, firms with more investment in employee training beyond on the job training and product certificates and that are publicly listed will have higher probability of engaging in technological innovation. Moreover, firms with a higher export ratio and a higher government ownership share will have lower probability of engaging in technological innovation. These results suggest that a firm's engagement in technological innovation is, at least in part, an Organizational phenomenon influenced by the firm's resource conditions, required legitimization in the market, and founding conditions.